A global response to Syria’s spiralling crisis

Faced with the
news that since mid-March more than 700 people have been killed in Syria,
thousands have been arrested and hundreds remain detained incommunicado and at
risk of torture, signing an online petition can seem like an inadequate
response.

As army tanks
shell residential areas in cities, protesters demanding political form are met
with violent suppression by the authorities and Syrians flee to Lebanon and
other neighbouring countries, clicking a button on a website can seem a bit
meaningless.

And that would
be true if you were the only person to do this.

But when 165,
953 people join together and commit to taking an individual action
collectively, that is when we see our power to mobilize for positive change.

Amnesty
International has repeatedly called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to rein
in his security forces, stop unlawful killings, torture and other gross abuses,
and hold those responsible to account.

But the
government has shown no willingness to do so and, instead, has intensified
repression against its own people as they have continued – despite the bullets
– to stand up and demand change.

Consequently,
Amnesty International called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the same way that it recently
referred Libya to the ICC Prosecutor, but the Security Council has failed so
far to take this step.

Thanks to the
power of our movement, we have now stepped up our demand to make sure that the
Syrian authorities and the international community hear our calls.

In the last
few weeks 165, 953 people from across the globe – including, most courageously,
from within Syria itself – signed on to a petition supporting the call for the
crisis in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court and urging
the President to stop the bloodshed.

In the Middle
East and North Africa, all across Europe, throughout the Americas and into Asia
and the Pacific region, individual people took a small action – they clicked a
button and signed a petition – and as they did so the call was strengthened and
this simple act became a powerful act of solidarity with the Syrian people and
an outcry of dismay at the grave human rights crimes now being committed in
Syria.

Now, in the
coming days the names of these people collected from Turkey to Tunisia, from
Canada to the Czech Republic, from Venezuela to Vietnam, and from Spain to
Syria – all united in their call to stop the bloodshed in Syria – will be
delivered to the Syrian authorities to keep up the pressure on them.

We are sending
a copy of this petition with a letter from Amnesty International’s Secretary
General Salil Shetty directly to President al-Assad – but to make sure that
they hear our demands over the coming days we will also be delivering copies of
the 550-page petition to Syrian embassies around the world.

The Syrian
authorities must be left in no doubt that those committing abuses against their
own people will be held to account – and the best, surest way to make this
clear is for the UN Security Council, without more delay, to refer the
situation in Syria to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.